The real stories from inside the F1 paddock

A Grand Prix in London

Recycling is a good thing, so they say. But I’m not so sure if that is really true when it comes to news stories. About once every two years there is a story about the possibility of a Grand Prix on the streets of London and people ask daft questions about whether it could happen: how much money would it generate for the city? Would the drivers have to pay the congestion charge? That sort of thing…

So let’s take a look at it. The Office of National Statistics recently reported that it estimates that London welcomed 16 million tourists in 2013, overtaking Paris as the most visited city in the world. The hotel occupancy rates have hovered around 80 percent for the last year, down from 2012 largely because of an increase in the number of hotel rooms to more than 100,000. Thus, in theory, there is room for improvement although pedestrian congestion is a problem at any and all tourist attractions. The hosting of an F1 race in the West End, as has been mooted, would thus depend on whether the possible gains would outweigh the disruption. Street races are famously disruptive, unless the venue is carefully chosen. The best venues are in city centre parks which do not involve any major traffic arteries. It might for example work in Hyde Park, which can be sealed off from the world around it, without messing the whole place up. However, the park is ringed by houses inhabited by the rich and powerful, who are always heavily armed with spanners to throw into the works. The other problem is not the one weekend when the race would happen, but rather the weeks of set-up and a similar period of cleaning up. Moving thousands of concrete barriers, bridges, grandstands and all the other paraphernalia is hugely disruptive. The city of Baltimore, for example, gave up a street race recently because of the mess it caused, compared to the revenues it generated. And let us not forget the mess that would be created by the preparatory roadworks required to have a suitable road surface and obstacle-free environment. Admittedly Central London has reduced its traffic flow with congestion charging, but the city still snarls up badly if there are road closures. And one must add to that the likely opposition from London’s Nimby community, who wish to lie quietly in their beds on Saturdays and Sundays.

Years ago Autosport ran an article in its April 1 edition about a street race in Central London. It was deemed to be that unlikely. Thirty years on from that, in a world of ever-increasing health and safety, with environmentalists under every cagoule, the idea is ever more remote. It would likely take years of legal actions from folk trying to protect pigeons and urban foxes.

The figures were seriously skewed by the Olympics in 2012, with thousands of extra hotel rooms being “created” out of every shed, hovel and orange box in the east end. Tourist figures and shop takings in the West end were down as people voided the expected hordes of the Olympic audience.
Though it was mooted at one time that an Olympic arena be incorporated into a race track, no thought had been given to the practicalities. A Formula E race might have more chance as it approaches by stealth under the false banner of “eco”

There would be a fantastic high speed layout around Liverpool City Centre but who would want to come here? Passed the Liver Buildings, up Leeds Street down parliament street. There must be one route in every city.

You need an Act of Parliament to close roads to race on and this takes considerable time. Birmingham already has one for the Superprix held between 1985-1990, so why not race in there?

There’s more going on in the UK than London. The problem is the UK is too London centric. Forget Scottish independence, the UK needs independence from London, all you need to do is build a big wall around the M25..lol!

Just a note, The The Birmingham Road Race Act is syill there, and every few years there is local “news” about reviving the superprix in some sort of form, from a small circuit race to an rally event. All which would need this bylaw to happen.

Another note, not specific to your comment, It took some twenty years to get that by-law in place. Something that nobody in these stories have addressed. Things like this tend to come up with tonnes of opposition which in turn makes it difficult to get the law through.

If a London Grand prix happens. I will run a ‘lap’ of the Birmingham Superprix naked.

As a resident of the Isle of Man, and an F1 fan, I think it would be a terrible idea because they’d surely find a way to make it clash with either the Isle of Man TT races or the Festival of Motoracing (the Manx Grand Prix by a new name), At least the Silverstone snooze-fest is reasonable distant from both.

London doesn’t need the exposure (it had the Olympics for that) and I can’t see the state paying for it – it would give too much additional ammo to the north / south divide arguments about ‘too much money being spent in London’ and not enough anywhere else.

It’s too logical for F1 to ever consider it, but… I don’t understand why F1 doesn’t put on some more serious demo runs in big cities to broaden the audience. Run it as individual time trial runs, get a local sponsor to pay for setting up the ‘track’ and a prize fund and it would create a lot less hassle / disruption than a street circuit race whilst bringing in a new generation of fans who could watch for free. Having been to the London demo they did through the West End a few years ago there’s clearly an appetite from fans and would be a winner for sponsors.

You can borrow the logistic geniuses who run the Australian Grand Prix: a $30m, four month set up and pull down, disrupting traffic, park users and sporting clubs. Then we wait for the grass to grow back as Winter approaches! Some football clubs miss almost half a season. How would Londoners like this?
Or is this Bernie’s latest smoke and mirrors game?

Birmingham made a street race happen, it was a wonderful spectacle so getting legislation past is still possible. I’d Scotland gains independence could there be a race up north as it would be as much a separate country as France/Monaco?

It took twenty years to get the By Laws in place (It got support from Stirling Moss in the late 60’s i Believe), And it cost so much the wealthy person who funded most of it ran out of money in Five.

Add in additional green tape, Health and Saftey, The Environmental lobby who jump on this in a second before any local considerations are sort after and there is more chance of a Grand Prix on the moon coming before London

You also need an Act of Parliment to have a street race in the UK, you can’t just close the roads. Witness the Birmingham Superprix. Not an issue if you use the parks of course, where any roads are likely private, not fully public…

Formula E seem to have someone employed solely to come up with pie-in-the-sky race tracks across London. Too many people seem to think some blue lines drawn on Google Maps constitute a solid plan. Their latest plan sees the race closing off Pall Mall, installing pits/paddock on Hyde Park and cars racing through the arches at Hyde Park corner – which are just wide enough for a single file horse and cart.

I love the idea of Formula E, and of a street race in London, but while the focus on such silly ideas, instead of working towards an actual solution (there is no movement I can see of getting an Act of Parliment through) it makes you question it all. The series seems solid though – but I wager I won’t have to travel very far from my home track of Donington to see the UK round…

Didn’t you see that the EU is trying to lower our motorway speed limit, if we are not careful all racing will be banned under the health and safety laws and the human rights act. (I’m sure the phrase peaceful enjoyment comes in somewhere and could be used to ban…. well everything really!)

We’ll I must find my source, because my memory isn’t as sharp as it was, but I believe there is such a proposal being discussed by government, to give councils the legal right to unilaterally suspend speed limits for sporting events. I understand that the councils are quite enthusiastic, since back in the days when street races were legal, the local economy did very well out of them, drawing very large crowds. I vaguely recall mention of a street race on Brighton sea front…….

It sounds very unlikely, we still have village fayres and school fetes being cancelled because of paranoid Blair era insistence on mega millions liability insurance and staff of twenty specially trained marshals by councils. The marshals are not actually allowed to do anything of course because of health and safety. (the same councils of course happily allow house building on flood plains.

“Historic motor races abandoned in the early and mid 20th Century could return to roads in Britain under government plans to be unveiled on Thursday.”

“… councils will for the first time be permitted to suspend speed limits for special events.

Doing so on mainland Britain currently requires an act of Parliament, with the result that just three events – the Jim Clark and Mull rallies in Scotland and Brighton speed trials – are currently permitted.”

“At least a dozen local authorities are believed to have expressed an interest in either reviving old races or staging new ones, including a proposed “Rally of the Midlands” and a motor race in Ormskirk, Lancashire.”

I remember queing up for quite a while a few years back to see Martin Brundle and I think Ralph and Jensen do one lap each from St James’s Park to Liberty’s on Regent St, a twenty second lap in a slow F1 car. I think MB drove the current Williams… Nothing more came of it as we all anticipated at the time.

Just looking at old photos of the Fiat factory in Turin. They had a quite spectacular test track on top of the factory building. Now that is a way London might go … a temporary rooftop track is probably easier to achieve than acts of parliament to close the streets ??

I went to see that rooftop racetrack on the FIAT factory years ago but it was shut due to a police investigation. Some foreign (thought to be British) villains had apparently busted open a bullion van and made off in small cars with the ingots in the boots. Wound up lapping the track several times before jumping clear! Ruined my visit…

The government has just launched a consultation on permitting closed roads racing (for any motorsport – race, rally, speed). This is at consultation stage.

Even if the government accepts having closed roads in full, it still needs to go through debate in the commons, and Act of Parliment, through the Lords. bonnie Prince Charlie will no doubt get involved.. So it’s not quick (whether Formula E’s Chief Of Speculative Street Circuits knows this or not).

But it’s progress, so every one on here that wants to see street racing, get involved and let the government know!

You beat me to it! An email from the MSA entitled “Government launches closed roads consultation” pinged into my inbox today. It seems this consultation will run for six weeks until 10 April 2014. The MSA have even published their own ‘special document’ about it and have a campaign running.

Not wishing to be told off by Joe for link posting, I can only suggest if you want to look at it, go find the MSA website by yourselves!

I’m surprised nobody has mentioned that once upon a time London already had a very fondly remembered park circuit – Crystal Palace.
Coincidentally, the Crystal Palace itself was originally erected in Hyde Park before being reassembled in what then became Crystal Palace Park. The palace burned down many years ago, of course, and safety considerations did for the circuit thirty-odd years later, but Chinese developers have put forward proposals to redevelop the park, the most eye-catching proposal being to build a replica of the palace. Perhaps a redevelopment of the circuit which conforms to modern safety requirements could be an additional facet of the plans.
The proximity of famous landmarks is of course the main appeal when anyone proposes a Grand Prix around Central London, and therefore the city’s windswept south-eastern suburbs are perhaps not what people have in mind when they think of “London GP”, but a race around an enormous glass palace would still stand out. It works visually in Abu Dhabi and, even better, it might work at the racing level too around the outline of a classic circuit like Crystal Palace.